The Health ministry is learnt to be examining the recommendations of an expert panel on a draft national vaccine policy to bring in more transparency in the selection and administration of vaccines in the country.

The health secretary, who has received the report of the panel and the draft prepared by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is likely to hold a meeting soon with the officials and the industry representatives to discuss the suggestions in the draft policy, sources said. The final draft of the policy would be worked out after these consultations.

The policy aims to increase transparency and allow the general public to have better say in the development of vaccines. If the policy goes into effect, proper consultations and debates in the public domain and the data thereafter will guide the criteria for introduction of a vaccine, instead of mere push by the companies. The policy will clearly specify the parameters to include vaccines in the national immunization programmes.

Sources confirmed that an expert team headed by former director general of ICMR, Dr N K Ganguly, had been asked to put in technical inputs along with the draft and the report of the panel was submitted to the health ministry.  The draft has also included some suggestions emerged from the public health experts in this regard. A consortium of doctors, scientists, policy analysts and lawyers had submitted the paper titled 'Evidence-based National Vaccine Policy.’

“Once policy is there, the authorities will know exactly which vaccines the country needs, especially for the national immunisation drives, which are the emerging vaccines and also will get an idea about the vaccines we need to develop for the future. It will also clearly spell out on the review mechanism of the government about vaccine trials,” said a scientist associated with the preparation of the draft.

Though the details of recommendations were not known yet, it is expected that the government will go for an evidence-based policy so that vaccines could be benefited by a larger section of the people. A system will be put in place to take evidence and science-based decisions on introducing vaccines, it is learnt.

The paper presented by the experts, some time back, had called for bringing all vaccines under the Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO) and creating a system to enable rational and evidence-based decisions for the development, entry, production, stable supply, pricing, promotion and use of appropriate vaccines on scientific grounds. It wanted the public sector as the sole producer of key vaccines.